Rangers plan vigorous home response

Rangers FC have never lost at home to Romanian visitors in a competitive fixture and Walter Smith's team will be looking to continue that sequence when they play host to FC Unirea Urziceni on Matchday 3.

• The Scottish titleholders are desperate for victory too, after following up their 1-1 draw at VfB Stuttgart with a 4-1 home defeat by Sevilla FC that left them bottom of Group G. They are level on points with their third-placed Romanian counterparts, who responded to a 2-0 loss at Sevilla by posting a 1-1 home stalemate with Stuttgart.

Match background
• FC Steaua Bucureşti provided the opposition on the three previous occasions that Rangers have faced Romanian sides at home in UEFA club competition. Their most recent meeting came in the 1995/96 UEFA Champions League group stage, a 1-1 draw at Ibrox.

• Rangers won the other games, 2-1 in the 1987/88 European Champion Clubs' Cup quarter-finals and 2-0 in the 1969/70 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup first round.

• Ally McCoist and Ian Durrant, now on the Rangers coaching staff, both played in each leg of that 1987/88 tie.

• In their three away contests with Romanian opponents, Rangers have not fared anywhere near as well, failing to score and losing twice, drawing the other.

• Unirea have never faced a Scottish team in a competitive fixture.

• Before their heavy home loss to Sevilla on 29 September, the Scottish champions had shown impressive form at Ibrox in UEFA club competition. With qualifying ties thrown into the mix, they had suffered only a single defeat in 20 games.

• That sequence included ten wins and nine draws, the only reverse coming in their previous home game before the start of this campaign, a 3-0 defeat by Olympique Lyonnais which consigned them to third in the 2007/08 group stage.

• In the UEFA Champions League, qualifying rounds included, Rangers have lost two of their last 13 home encounters, winning five and drawing six.

Team ties
• Unirea coach Dan Petrescu played for Romania at Hampden Park, Glasgow, in a 1992 UEFA European Championship qualifier in September 1990. Scotland triumphed 2-1 with current Rangers assistant manager McCoist scoring the winner. Petrescu also played in the return fixture eleven months later, a 1-0 win for Romania in Bucharest.

• Petrescu scored for Chelsea FC in a 3-1 victory over Everton FC at Stamford Bridge in May 1999, during Smith's first season in charge of the Merseyside club.

• Smith got a measure of revenge in 2000/01 as Everton beat a Bradford City AFC side featuring Petrescu 1-0 at Valley Parade in November 2000.

• For the past two summers Unirea have had a pre-season tour of Scotland. This year they played Celtic FC behind closed doors, drawing 1-1, and defeated Greenock Morton FC 3-1. Elsewhere on that tour Unirea lost 2-1 to English side Plymouth Argyle FC at Balgray Playing Fields in Glasgow and beat Ayr United FC 2-1.

• In 2008 Unirea drew 2-2 with Celtic and 1-1 with Livingston FC, as well as beating Saint Johnstone FC 4-0 and Motherwell FC 2-1.